It was a big day. We got our pigs today. Plus one. The original plan for adult 4-H was to get 3 pigs. One for each of us. Then I had a few friends ask if they could just avoid all the work, have me raise the pig for them so they could just buy a pig when its ready to slaughter. Ok, so then, I planned on buying four pigs, one for me and one for lazy friends (KIDDING, you guys) and Mahina and Kristen’s pigs. I figured I might be able to make a few bucks to invest into buying some more pig panels or a, *cough* *cough* sow. But somehow by the time we came home today, we had five pigs!

Our piglets.

Mahina and Kristen met me bright and early, here on the Ranch. We borrowed my Mom’s truck, put a foam bed-liner and pine shavings in the back, opened the windows in the camper shell, and duct taped all the lighting wires up and off we went. After much searching the internets for heritage pig producers in Northern California we found Jamie at High Mountain Hogs. She is located out of Mad River, California, which is about a three and half hour (and a very curvy) drive from the Ranch.

My social media friend Amy Sipes is the person who first brought red wattles to my attention. She has a slaughterhouse in Kentucky and has taught me much about, well, meat and meat safety (thanks Amy!). Last year she kept posting these RED pork chops on her Facebook page. Like most of you, I am used to store pork, and while store pork is great, I missed having really wonderful, succulent, amazing homegrown pork. I haven’t raised our own pork since my 4-H days, which, let’s just say was at least over 10 years ago. I saw these beautiful pork chops Amy kept posting, and I found myself having major pork envy. If you know me in real life, once I get an idea in my head, I’m like a dog with a bone, good luck getting me to give it up (you’ll lose a finger!). My mission in life became getting red wattles, and today it happened.

Hog heaven! Guardian dogs and pig cats. I liked it there.

We got on the road bright and early. Of course, a Starbuck’s and gas stop was made and maayyybeeee a short stop at Lucero when we got to Corning.

This is hands down my favorite olive oil and vinegar place in the world. It’s so good. I make excuses to stop here, I can’t help it! Plus I had to get something for my Mom because we used her truck. I can fit 2 bags of shaving and 3 bags of hog chow in my Corolla, but I think 5 piglets and 3 girls would have been pushing it.

After that though, we made excellent time. The drive itself was a lot of fun, we saw a lot of agriculture and animals on our way there, including several does and fawns and a roadrunner!

High Mountain Hogs – started because Jamie missed having super good pork too.

We followed Jamie up to her hog barns and met all kinds of pigs! From red wattles to landraces to berkshires, we met sows, boars, piglets, guardian dogs and pig cats. It was glorious. I was in hog heaven (see what I did there?). Jamie was wonderfully patient as we pelted her with hundreds of hog related questions. We ended up buying red wattle/tamworth cross pigs. Since we are not breeding these pigs, we thought it was a great idea to use hybrid vigor to make some great pork. Red wattles are known for red meat and tamworths are know as the “bacon pig” – can you imagine a better melding of genetics? I can’t.

Hog farmer Kristen with Yum Yum.

Jamie caught our barrows (castrated male pig), and taught us the correct way to handle them. And then she gave us a runt! We couldn’t help it you guys, he was super cute! The runt she gave us was from a different breed of pig, a hereford. We’re pretty excited to have a taste test of pork when we are done – hereford vs. red wattle/tamworth vs berkshire (our friends raise them) vs store pork. Yeah, that’s going to be a bbq you want to be invited to.

Hog farmer Mahina with Pork Chop.

Unfortunately we had to leave High Mountain Hogs way before we wanted to because we were chasing daylight. We still had to get home, get the pigs situated, and fine tune our hog pen! The piglets were great passengers, despite my very best efforts of driving slowly and pulling over for rests, we had some car sickness from the little guys (and me!). When we got home it was a race to get the pigs in their new pen, set up the water system (Char was too small to use it), and clean the pig poo and puke out of my Mom’s new truck.

Pig house!

While we were gone, my Mom added sides to the pig’s house, which was a really good thing, because Char is soooooo little he could have slipped right out.

Me with Char and Hoot lurking. My Boss’s kids are naming my two pigs.

We safely unloaded our piglets into their new home. We had piglet chow and apples ready for them, they were pretty excited about that. Hoot dog supervised with intensity unmatched, we’re sure Hoot is ready to step up and be the piglet’s new guardian dog. It got dark and we had to let the pigs go to bed. I just did an 10:00 PM welfare check and the piglets had half their pen rooted up, but were happily asleep. I have my alarm set for daylight for another welfare check and Mahina and Kristen plan on being here tomorrow too. Adult 4-H has officially begun.

Your piglets are adorable! This is so great that you are doing this, and teaching your friends along the way. We always have fresh pork and beef in the freezer and it’s hard for me to remember that not everyone is so lucky. Good luck with everything!

Damnit……. I love a nice pork chop or bbq’d pork ribs, but I look at those fella’s and I know I’d just make pets out of them. Mind you, at the same time, I do want to know what the bacon will look like. I’m not very impressed with american bacon as it is, it seems that there’s way more fat than actual meat (even in the center cut stuff), so I’d love to see what the end result is going to be (even if I have to pretend to myself that it’s from totally different pigs I didn’t have to see…). (Yes I realize with that statement I’m dangerously close to be a bbh)(bongo banging hippy)

Dear AIRMIA: as I always tell people, my experience is that baby meat animals are super cute… and then as they grow up they are super obnoxious and not so cute any more 😉 I raise goats for meat, and that’s what I always tell people “they’re cute, then they’re obnoxious, then they’re eaten.”

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16 hours agoby megraebFun fact about the ranch: we have the oldest pool in Butte County. It’s made of concrete and above ground. Since we’ve had a rough few years out here we decided we’re gonna fix it up and enjoy it this summer. Because we need something nice to live for. #TwoFires#AFlood#SoMuchDrama

16 hours agoby megraebAbout a week ago I let the pigs out to graze. One didn’t come back. Bulleit’s daughter. I’d convinced myself she’d taken off to farrow and died, because I’ve been having bad pig luck here lately. She did take off to farrow, but she didn’t die! She only has two piglets but she’s not dead! #freerangepigshavedrawbacks#gonnabesuperfatpiglets#notdead

2 days agoby megraebThis might look like a mess of sleeping piglets, but in actuality it’s a highly complex and loud security system that will bite ankles and scream at the same time if anyone comes to my door. #SoSafe#BottlePigs#spoiled

3 days agoby megraebI find cool ‘treasures’ on the ranch all the time. Today it was a bird house branch. It’d be a cool show and tell project for a kid. #nature#birdhouse#nest